The present invention is directed to reprographic systems including a personal computer (PC) work station connected to a copier or multifunction machine, and more particularly to such a PC work station having a reduction/enlargement (R/E) fine tuning feature.
A conventional reprographic machine is the office copier. Traditionally, the copier, in the office equipment context, refers to a light lens xerographic copier in which paper originals are in fact photographed. The images are focused on an area of a photoreceptor, which is subsequently developed with toner. The developed image on the photoreceptor is then transferred to a copy sheet which in turn is used to create a permanent copy of the original.
In recent years, however, there has been made available what is known as digital copiers or printing machines. In the most basic functions, a digital copier or printing machine performs the same functions as a light lens copier, except that the original image to be copied is not directly focused on a photoreceptor. Instead, with a digital copier or printer, the original image is received from a personal computer (PC) work station, or is scanned by a device generally known as a raster input scanner (RIS) which is typically in the form of a linear array of small photosensors.
The original image is focused on the photosensors in the RIS. The photosensors convert the various light and dark areas of the original image to a set of digital signals. These digital signals are temporarily retained in a memory and then eventually used to operate the digital printing machine or copier when it is desired to print copies of the original. The digital signals may also be sent directly to the digital printing machine or copier without being stored in a memory.
Moreover, with the advent of the digitalization of the office copier, there has also been made available digital multi-function machines. The digital multi-function machine is a single machine which provides a user with more than one function. An example of a typical multi-function machine would include a digital facsimile function, a digital printing function, and a digital copy function.
More specifically, a user can utilize this digital multi-function machine to send a facsimile of an original document to a remote receiving device, to scan in an original image and print copies thereof, and/or to print documents from either a locally connected source, or from a portable memory device which has been inserted into the multi-function machine.